


that thing in your neck

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 09:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10614132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Scully's chip tries to send her somewhere.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Original post: https://how-i-met-your-mulder.tumblr.com/post/153565739388/write-about-scullys-implant-making-her-go-to-a

They have an official, irregular routine of sharing dinners after work at one or the other’s apartment. Before the X Files were closed, Mulder might’ve disguised it as a case, but now he has little reason to see her outside of work (since neither of them are very passionate about background checks), so he blatantly asks her. And is pleasantly surprised the first time when she accepts. And is even more pleasantly surprised the time after that when she’s the one to suggest it. It slowly becomes a routine for him to casually say, “So your place or mine?” when they’re leaving work - in the parking garage, where no one will hear and get suspicious. 

It happens one night when they’re eating takeout on Mulder’s couch, and talking over the TV. Scully stops talking suddenly mid-sentence and drops her fork, scattering noodles all over his coffee table. “You okay, Scully?” he asks unknowingly, mind still tuned in to the conversation. 

She’s gone completely stiff, hands clenched into fists, eyes flicking around nervously. “I have to go,” she mutters. 

Mulder blinks at her, confused. “You need to go?”

“I need to…” She stands, almost blindly, but doesn’t make a move for her car keys. 

“Scully?“ 

“Not again,” she whispers, taking a stiff step towards the door, like she doesn’t want to, like she’s holding herself back.

He stands quickly, banging his knee on the coffee table in the process. “Scully, what’s wrong?”

She takes another shaky step towards the door. “The chip…” she says. “Mulder…”

“It’s sending you somewhere?” he says, still not comprehending.

“I can’t stop it,” Scully gasps, halfway to the door now. “You have to stop it, Mulder.”

_Fires ashes Scully_ … Mulder scrambles over to her, gathering her up in his arms. Her fingernails dig into his arm painfully as she fights against him.

“Mulder,” she gasps, nearly sobbing with the effort. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, holding her tighter. He doesn’t want to hurt her. “I’m sorry, Scully, what do I do?”

“The closet,” she says through her teeth. “Lock me in.”

He scoops her up, somewhat clumsily, and moves towards the closet. She is fighting him off, and murmuring “Sorry, sorry…” as she does it, an almost ironic mantra. He pulls her into the closet, shoving boxes aside so that their contents spill over the floor, and shuts the door firmly, darkness descending in a wave.

She shoves herself as far away from him as she can get in the small space, sinking down in a corner. “Mulder, block the door,” she whispers. 

He sits with his back against the door, their knees almost touching. “You okay?” he whispers. 

“I will be.”

“Being in here isn’t too much for you, is it?” he asks. He’s thinking of her statement to Agent Bocks in Minneapolis, about how she’d woken up in a closet. 

Scully is shaking with the effort of staying still. In the faint glow from under the door, he can see that she is holding her temple in her hands. “I’m okay.”

He takes her hand in his. It’s shaking so hard that he can barely hold it. 

They sit like that for what must be hours, with her shaking and him holding her hand. 

Eventually, she whispers, “I think it stopped, Mulder.”

He helps her stand and pulls her into a hug. She’s trembling, but it’s an exhausted sort of tremble, a relieved tremble, her face pressed into his neck. “I’m so sorry, Scully,” he whispers into her hair. 

“It’s not your fault.” She draws away from him, breathing unsteadily and gulping air in an attempt not to. “But I do need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to cut out the chip.”

He’s trembling now, holding him tighter, cold fingers pressed to the back of her neck like he can hold the chip in place. “Absolutely not.”

“Mulder, please.”

“No. I can’t watch you die again, Scully.” 

“We don’t know that the cancer would come back…” she tries, touching his face like it’ll change his mind.

“I can’t.” He kisses her, expecting her to shove him away, but she surges back against him like the tide. 

He pulls back after a minute, bumping his forehead against hers. “I can’t, Scully,” he repeats. 

“If this happens again…” 

He thumbs her cheekbone. “Your family can’t do it again, Scully. It’s too much.” 

Her breathing is unsteady, and he can barely see her in the dark, but he can tell she’s almost crying - Scully, who almost never cries. He hates this for her, and he hates them for it. “We’ll find them,” he promises. “This will all be over someday. The chip will be keeping you alive and nothing else.”

She nods numbly. 

He’s made too many promises he hasn’t kept and not enough that he has, but she holds his hand like she believes him.


End file.
